Wednesday, February 12, 2025

New: Biker Preacher and Other Stories

 New Release! My collection of Christian fiction featuring 11 stories is now live. 

Amazon: Kindle Unlimited, E-Book, Paperback

Biker Preacher and Other Stories

A collection of Christian fiction.

From the sawdust trail of a small town camp meeting to the healing thermal springs high in the Pyrenees, author Lyndon Perry takes his readers on a journey of hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation - with a bit of humor along the way - via eleven short stories that showcase the writer's Christian values and world view.

Affiliate link to Amazon.

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Coming Next Week!

Expanding my catalog of books at Tule Fog Press this year. Starting off by adding two new genres for my indie publishing platform - Christian Fiction and Western. Mentioned our latest release yesterday (Ruth: A Journey to Faith by Revathi Selwyn)

But today, I want to announce the release of D. M. Karder's rip-roaring, gunslinging Wild West adventure, Rising from the Ashes. (Note: Affiliate links to Amazon throughout.) It's currently up for pre-order and has a page at Goodreads now, so mark it "Want To Read!" :)

Here's the blurb...

Chicago, 1871. The city burns unrestrained. In a sea of people, a boy stands alone: young David Murphy. Witness through his mind’s eye his transformation from a desperate youth to one of the fiercest gunmen of the Wild West.

To capture Murphy’s story, an ambitious writer of Western lore is needed. Enter Vernon Shields who wants to publish an account that will define his career. When Shields meets a man now known simply as Longhair, he procures permission to write the gunman’s life story.

Rising from the Ashes is a tale of blazing guns that stretched from the Civil War to the turn of the twentieth century. The guns and the people who mastered them made their own destiny. Most men died as fast as they drew the steel. However, a few like Longhair walked the walk and lived to tell of their adventures of quick draws, ambush killings, and the excruciating challenges of life itself.

~*~

“Storytelling with no shortage of action, delivers a fresh spin on the turn of the century.” – Don G. Porter, Author of Yukon Murders

“Many events molded and transformed this country at the end of the nineteenth century. My goal is to put the reader in the boots of the main character, David Murphy. To provide an experience of what it was like to live life in the 1860s to 1890s, from Chicago’s great boom to the end of the Wild West.” – Author D. M. Karder

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

New Release from Tule Fog Press

Excited about this announcement - I just edited and published Revathi Selwyn's Biblical novel, Ruth: A Journey to Faith. With this novel, I'm launching a new line of books at Tule Fog Press - Christian fiction. I hope to add two more titles to this category this year.

Amazon Link (affiliate)

From the Back Cover...

Ruth is a Princess of Moab. Naomi, her mother-in-law from Israel, shares with her the love of Yahweh. Naomi’s God and people become Ruth’s God and people. As Ruth learns to trust in the God of Creation, the Lord honors her faithfulness. Her journey to faith in Yahweh is rewarded, and she becomes an ancestor to kings!

About the Book

This creative imagining of Ruth’s story is based on Biblical history and the truth of Scripture (especially as found in the Book of Ruth). Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons move to Moab due to severe famine in Israel. Ruth meets Mahlon and marries into the Israelite family. Naomi loses her sons and, in bitterness, decides to return to Israel. Ruth is determined to cross the Jordan and follow her mother-in-law to a new life.

In the city of Bethlehem, Ruth meets Boaz in the barley fields. He becomes her kinsman redeemer. She marries him and becomes the ancestor to the kings of Israel. Ruth has come a long way from being a little princess of Moab. She enjoys her final days spending time with her great-grandson, David, teaching him to play the tambourine and to worship the God of Israel.

About the Author

Revathi Selwyn is a family practitioner, poet, and author. She loves writing and her books are fun to read. She’s written a series of short stories that encourage children to be kind to one another, to animals, and to nature. In Created for a Purpose, her stories emphasize that God has a purpose for everything He has created.

Titles within this children’s series include Josh-Posh, Little Hug-Me and the Avocado; Josh-Posh, Little Hug-Me and Izzy Busy; and Josh-Posh, Little Hug-Me and the Spotted Dove. Her first children’s book was published in 2014, Tsip the Little Sparrow.

Revathi lives in Hyderabad, India, with her husband; they have two grown children. She loves nature, birds, and animals. Her favorite pets are her two labs, Amy and Teddy. She also enjoys writing poetry and has posted several of her poems online. You can find all her books here on Amazon.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Enter the Realm of Sword & Sorcery!

We're launching a new Kickstarter today - a campaign to introduce three new sword and sorcery proejcts by David A. Riley, Tim Hanlon, and Andrew Darlington. You can get all the details here. There are 10 Reward Levels and 10 Add-On Options, so you can build up your S&S library quite nicely!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lyndonperry/three-new-sword-and-sorcery-collections

Check out these three stories representing three new collections by David A. Riley, Tim Hanlon, and Andrew Darlington arriving via Kickstarter November 12, 2024. 

Free Story - “The Forbidden City of Cyramon” by David A. Riley. Test drive this beauty from Riley's upcoming collection, Welgar the Cursed.

Free Story - “Queen of the Shifting City” by Tim Hanlon. Sample this delicacy from Hanlon's upcoming collection, Path of the Swordsman.

Free Story - “The Blood-Beast from Hellmouth” - An Eternal Assassin Story by Andrew Darlington. Taste test this morsel from Darlington's upcoming The Eternal Assassin Chronicles.



Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Latest Kickstarter - A Sherlockian/Lovecraftian Mashup

 Sherlock & Friends: Eldritch Investigations

Up on Kickstarter, a new campaign for fans of mystery with a bit of cosmic horror! This is an anthology of 9 adventures featuring Holmes’s friends & rivals as they pit their detection skills against Lovecraftian horrors. The campaign ends May 2, 2024, so check it out here.

Every backer at $6 or more will receive an electronic copy of the anthology, Sherlock & Friends: Eldritch Investigations (EPUB & PDF) which features 9 adventures (over 80,000 words). These tales 'channel the spirits' of Victorian and Edwardian age detectives that graced the dime novels and pulp magazines of this golden era. Reward tiers for paperbacks and hardcovers available as well! 

Here's the cover reveal! Slick, eh? The stories are excellent as well. All edited and ready to go! 



Thursday, June 01, 2023

Book Review Thursday - The Dressmaker's Gift

My Review of: The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy

A few months back, I organized a Book Club at our condo community. I thought it would be a good way to meet new people here in Puerto Rico. First two meetings, there were only two of us! But we persisted and had five last month to discuss John Grisham's legal thriller, The Judge's List. Most people liked it, I thought it was meh (check out my review). Our next meeting is next Saturday and we'll be talking about The Dressmaker's Gift (affiliate link to Amazon).

I liked this novel fairly well, but with some caveats. To start, it was a narrative- and reflection-heavy story (a lot of tell, not show). And it was slow. I know this isn't supposed to be a thriller, but the bulk of the story is set in occupied Paris during WW2. I thought there'd be a lot more tension.

Then, there's the structure of the novel. It's a modern trend, I guess, but the time jumps! Please. Can't we just have a regular historical novel set in the past? There are three main plot threads. The first is about Harriet (the modern day character from 2017). She's piecing together the story of her grandmother Claire who was a seamstress in 1940s Paris. The flashback chapters involve three friends - Claire, Vivienne, and Mirieille - and their roles in the French resistance.

Another "meh" for me was the modern day premise. I guess you need a rationale to start a story, but the set up was a bit too convenient - Harriet goes to Paris in 2017 on a kind of inner journey of discovery and ends up working in the same dress shop as her grandmother Claire and meeting Mirielle's granddaughter (Simone) in the same couture shop. They board in the same upstairs bedrooms as their grandmothers.

Okay. All well and good. So how do we flashback? Harriet wants to find out about Claire, and Simone writes her grandmother Mirielle (who's still alive at 100!) for details. The backstory is slowly revealed. Fortunately, this is told in good old-fashioned third person past (not via letters, thank goodness). It involves the other two plots - sometimes it's about Mirielle, sometimes it's about Claire. I'd have preferred one POV, but heh.

But even this portion of the novel was slow until about 60% when the tension mounted. I just was not interested in the modern day character's angst and commentary. I think you could skip the Harriet passages altogether and still enjoy the novel. But evidently this is the trend today. Plus, Harriet (and the author herself, from what she said in the afterword) got stuck on the idea of inherited trauma (as a motivating driver behind the MC's search for meaning) which I thought distracted from the story.

I'd recently read another flashback/three-character plotted WW2 novel called Across the Winding River by Aimie K. Runyan which I really enjoyed (4.5 stars) despite its structure, so I'm probably comparing the two books. This one gets 2.5 stars. The narrative time jump device got a bit tiresome and, while the writing was good enough, The Dressmaker's Gift just wasn't that compelling for me. Your mileage may vary - it has over 90,000 ratings (!) and 61% are 5 stars.

Question: Do you enjoy historical novels? And are you into this modern trend of a contemporary chracter discovering some post card or photograph about the past and launching into a journey of discovery?

~*~

This is Book #20 in my race to read/review 52 books this year.
Click here for a list of all my 52 Week Challenge reviews.

Thursday, May 11, 2023

Book Review Thursday - Two Ray Irish Mysteries

My Review of: Ray Irish Mystery Case Files #1 & #2 by Gordon Brewer

I think I found these two short pulp/noir detective mysteries via a freebie newsletter dealybob and went to the author's website to download a few samples. The writer is Gordon Brewer, and he had these two Ray Irish Case Files available for visitors. (Plus a short two-volume sword and sorcery e-book called Clovel Sword Saga which I've read and liked but have yet to review.)

The first Ray Irish mystery is titled Death Stalks the Runway and was quite intriguing and enjoyable. It starts out strong with a vicious crime, and the shamus (or private eye) is off and running, tracking down suspects as the tension mounts and the acts of violence increase. This story features a model and a suspicious agent - along with some gangsters and other nefarious players. The women the agent represents are living in fear, but a courageous 'dame' wants justice and Ray Irish is happy to seek it despite the danger to himself and his colleagues.

If you enjoy hard-boiled pulpy noir set in the 1940s, I think you'll like this first one. It's gritty and raw but well written and full of interesting characters. It's a short novella or a long novelet (about 65 pages), and is just the right length for this kind of adventure. I give it 4.5 stars.

The second Ray Irish mystery (Reaper Walks the Garden) is not as good as the first. Whereas Case File #1 bolts right out of the gate - with danger and fast pulpy action - Case File #2 opens with a grisly murder followed by lots and lots of talking. Lots and lots. The hard-boiled detective action didn't really start until a third of the way through. And for something this length (overlong at 95 pages), that's too far into the story for me to stay interested. So I skimmed to the end where everything was explained.

Basically, our shamus Mr. Irish tries to figure out who killed a dysfunctional woman in a dysfunctional family. Everyone's a suspect. But none of the characters grabbed me and they were all unlikable. Also, quite vulgar and violent. Like I said, it just didn't match the intrigue and engaging style of the first novelet. Not as strongly written, plus more than few typos which distracted me every now and then. Only 2.5 stars for this follow up mystery. But do grab the first one here.

~*~

This is Book #17 in my race to read/review 52 books this year.
Click here for a list of all my 52 Week Challenge reviews.